


Moonrise

by StudioRat



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort Sex, Consensual Kink, Declarations Of Love, Depression, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Long-Term Relationship(s), Love Confessions, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Romance, Sad and Sweet, Self-Harm, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:35:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudioRat/pseuds/StudioRat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hero always wins - but is the hero always right?</p><p>Long histories and misunderstandings ensnare Link and Ganondorf on a sultry autumn afternoon. Neither can untangle themselves alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote some smutty Ganlink.
> 
> It's not my fault. I was provoked.
> 
> But because it's me, it's gothic and complicated. This story is not going to please everyone. Kinda like opera. 
> 
> Setting:  
> Alternate timeline, many years after and sideways of the events in Majora's Mask. In other words, OoT happened, MM happened, and then Time Stuff Happened, taking us off the established canon timelines.
> 
> About this story:  
> M/m gothic romance and sex. Kink with a slow burn. Saccharine mushy stuff with an unreliable narrator and a side of D/s and light bondage.

Shards of golden light marched across the room, carving an intricate latticework into all before it. Even Link could appreciate the beauty of the iron window screens, given certain conditions. Prime among them: being properly awake.

He glared at the autumn sunlight, but it lacked either shame or fear before the honored hero, and continued its merciless advance across linen and flesh. He could ignore the morning as it ignored him, and for a long moment he was determined to do exactly that. He even burrowed back into his nest of cushions - less poetry than truth, for what the the enormous sleeping platform lacked in natural softness was abundantly countered by pillows of every possible shape, size and stuffing.

Yet he could not relax even within such sensuous fortifications, precisely *because* he had so many pillows. He groped for the bell-cord strung safely under the edge of the platform, and promptly returned to wallowing in his nest once he'd felt the counterweight shift.

There was one other reason he couldn't return to sleep, more easily remedied than the first - but the thought brought him the reverse of pleasure. Instead, he demolished his nest until he found one particular cushion amid the horde. Enormous, with a core of quilted felt wrapped in layers of down and tightly woven linen, forever smelling of spice. Perfectly suited to burying his face in for a good sulk.

Link did not bother to see who brought the coffee - he knew who it wasn't, and that fact was enough to make him bite the innocent cushion beneath him. It was more virtuous than swearing at the servant, but only by a narrow margin.

Link decided as the door swung shut on the sound of brass bells that he would need more than coffee to face this day in anything like good humor.

-

He felt better after a ride and a light breakfast. Not yet well enough to humor people - so he joined the master of horse in her work until the sun tipped past zenith towards the warmest hour. The autumn here possessed a fickle temperament, but the year was only just beginning to wind down. Afternoons would remain sultry enough for at least another month, two if the weather continued dry.

Link chose to return by a path most likely to cross with the head steward before reaching the baths. His strategy found exactly the reward he expected, though not the one he hoped. He ground his teeth and considered skipping the bath. No doubt the busy people who saw him idling in the courtyard would have worked harder to avoid his notice if they'd been able to see the shape of his thoughts.

Civilization won that round.

-

Link laughed at himself as he tucked a few extra things in his pockets afterwards, remembering the days when all gave way before his singular purpose. It was good to have a purpose, he felt, yet even better to have several, and moreover, the leisure to enjoy the journey.

A short walk and two flights of stairs revealed an empty office. The desk was too tidy to have seen much use, so there was either nothing of concern, or too much to do anything about. Link breathed a prayer for the former, and climbed another stair.

-

The scent of this floor always stirred his emotions: heavy with the perfume of rare resins and oils mingled with the aggressive astringent aroma of their own summer herbs. With the exception of the expensively glazed south wing and its horde of looms and frames, most of these rooms served for storage. The two most likely to hold his object embodied more dire purpose.

Once, he'd found amusement in the arrangement - not because the stillroom was neither on the ground floor nor off the garden as it would have been in his homeland - but rather, that it sprawled directly across from the combined armory and salle. Equal space and fastidious attention given to the arts of life and death exactly suited the character of their master. He was idle in neither, but Link had long ago come to understand the paradox was neither accurate nor cause for levity.

He set aside the difficult memory - trouble enough when one of them indulged it. The double doors of the salle hung open, a handful of narrow golden shafts scattered across the dark floor.

Link spent a moment in the shadows to school his heart and breath, promising himself to speak to the steward about changing these shutters for draperies from his own funds before full harvest.


	2. Zenith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hero always wins - but is the hero always right?
> 
> Long histories and misunderstandings ensnare Link and Ganondorf on a sultry autumn afternoon. Neither can untangle themselves alone.

He slipped into the dim room silent, cat-footed, every fiber of his being focused on his lover's broad, muscled back. Golden motes settled in the soft halo of the black stormisle wool stretched over his massive frame, threatening to distract Link with visceral memories of adoring that dear landscape. He still wore his hair in the same thick, loose plait he slept in - a compromise, dearly won - its tail coiled on the floor behind him.

A dangerous sign.

Gan neither turned nor paused in his work, though even the scrape and whine of whetstone kissing steel couldn't hide Link's approach. They were too closely bound for silence to truly cloak either one of them. He took another step - and another, without correction or comment of any kind. He indulged a swell of pride at the compliment to his skill, and took another careful step into his lover's deep shadow.

It was almost a game between them now, less of skill in ambush than strength of will. Another step - answered this time by a slight turn to the left. A shift of weight so minimal as to elude any eye less practiced at looking for it, but just enough to decide the victory. Light gilded the corded muscle of Gan's neck for a single long breath - another silent step, and Link sunk his teeth into that savory prize.

The screech of stone and steel tapered to silence. He lingered another moment, tasting salt, savoring the mouthfeel of beloved flesh, tightening his grip until he was certain of leaving at least two little marks.

He threaded his left hand into the other man's hair at the nape of the neck, careful of the first few crossings in the plait. Gan remained still - the mountain was not easily moved. But Link felt the pulse under his tongue jump. He pulled back for a breath - and bit again, a thumblength higher.

Nothing.

Link stilled the gentle undulation of his fingers in the depths of the other man's glorious red hair, his thoughts circling at the same swift pace as the throbbing vein under his teeth. Doubt curled its icy, leaden weight around his core, bleeding away the thrill of triumph with every beat. Link opened his eyes, preparing to pull away - and saw at once what he could not have a moment before.

Gan's hands were shaking.

Infinitesimal tremors rippled through his fierce discipline, though his knuckles were ashen and he would carry bruises tomorrow from pressing his fists into his own thighs to suppress them. From the uneven brightness along the length of the terrible, spiral-forged divine blade across his knees, he'd been fighting the tremors for some time.

The powerful artifact did not need a razor edge to serve its deadly purpose, and both men knew it. As with every other time he'd found Gan honing that blade, Link sent the goddesses a silent, fervent prayer that this would be the last.

Link soothed the second bite with a chaste kiss, neither expecting nor hoping for reaction. Gan surprised him - drawing a deep, swift breath. Nothing more, yet it was enough to send a different kind of tremor out from _**his**_  root. He pressed his cheek against soft, ticklish whiskers, drinking in the intoxicating spice of the man.

Ganondorf's full beauty regimen would daunt all but the most determined Hylian debutante - and shortly thereafter make them the plague of their suitors, refusing kisses until they too learned the secret of keeping a silky beard and fine complexion at the very least.

Decades of peace, and softness was still not considered a manly virtue in Link's homeland.

He reined in his wandering thoughts with a sigh. Gan remained silent. Link slid his right hand over warm wool and the powerful muscles swelling beneath it, winding his lover into a cautious embrace.

"I'm here," he said.

A measured breath, followed eventually by the low rumble of gathering storms. "You smell of horse."

Link dropped his chin into the hollow of Gan's shoulder, sulking. He sagged half his weight across his lover's rigid back, also to no effect. He might do as well with a boulder. "I had a bath."

"I don't mind," came the answer, so quiet he'd never have heard it if he hadn't felt the words being formed.

"He says, sitting alone, in the dark, sharpening my sword," Link said, keeping his tone light, teasing.

He slid forward, nuzzling into Gan's beard and drawing himself closer. A tentative curling and drawing down of fingertips against Gan's scalp produced another surprise - he followed the touch easily and completely. Link stopped moving, and so did Gan. He nudged a little left, and again, Gan followed, exposing more of his neck, but not a hair more than Link's touch suggested. Yet his answer belied that apparent pliability.

"Someone has to tend the matters you are too lazy to complete yourself."

"Those days are over, Desert King," Link murmured, pressing a passionate kiss to the smooth heat of Gan's throat.

"Hn. If anything can be certain, when time itself dances to your song," he said, his deep rumble buzzing seductively under Link's lips, "it is that no story is ever over."

Link froze, teeth hovering over pulsing vein. That could mean anything. "I have chosen this one."

"Hn," came the reply, wind swelling and sinking away again while the mountain remained. "And how long will bedding a lesser evil continue to amuse you?"

Link fought back a snarl, biting deeply into the vulnerable flesh under him. A rebuke fueled by years of strife and frequently frustrated desire. Teeth fastened around the other man's still throat, left hand fisted in his hair to draw him back, in silence he demanded Gan unsay such venom.

No answer but a rising heat and held breath. Gan hated to be seen to struggle unless that visibility could be useful. Link counted heartbeats, willing him to yield.

Nothing.

A stray thought about the opinion of the servants saved them both. Link laughed, releasing his grip. Gan drew a measured breath as if nothing untoward had happened at all. Link committed more of his weight to the sprawling stance hanging over Gan's shoulder.

"Admit it," he said, surprised by his own hoarse tone. "You like it when I win."

"You can't bear to lose," Gan returned, setting aside the whetstone with a brief, muffled tattoo.

"Tcha," Link pulled Gan's head back further, trailing his tongue up into the scarred hollow under his jaw. "You don't give me a serious challenge."

Gan raised a hand at last, enveloping Link's right. "I would break you."

"Accepted," he said.

The next moment unfolded in less time than it takes to think of it, let alone tell. Gan closed his grip around Link's hand, pulling and bending in the same moment. The world tilted, and Link met the floor with his back. He stared stupidly at the bright hilt in his face, trying to understand how it ended up above him.

"Win," Gan said, his wide lips twisted up at one side, golden eyes shining. He held the blade in the middle, no doubt adding more cuts to his palm.

 

Link frowned. "That's not funny."

"Isn't it?" Gan said, light shimmering along the bright sword in his trembling fist. "Or has this particular challenge merely lost its novelty?"

"Gan-"

"How many times? Do you even bother to count?" He let the silence settle heavily between them, one brow lifted in arch challenge. "You will oblige me in this. I grow tired of waiting, wondering when you will decide you are finished here."

Link stared at the iridescent patterns engraved in the hilt, resisting the temptation to rage at Gan's cavalier attitude. He had to remain calm. "If I used time as lightly as you think, I would know how to stop you before you get like this."

"I see what you dream," he said. "You know a thousand ways to _**stop me**_."

"They're not dreams," Link whispered. "You eavesdrop on my nightmares. Memories of my failures."

Gan dropped his gaze to the tiny sliver of floor between them. "Seize your victory, hero. You’ve stalked me long enough."

Link ground his teeth, wrapping his left hand around the spiral ricasso. Gan released his hold at once, revealing dark smudges along the fine edge. The moment his hand was fully clear, Link hurled the sword away with a much force as he could manage. A flash of light and terrible crash somewhere to the left announced the destruction of some innocent bench or armor stand or similar - neither man looked to see.

Gan snorted in disgust, rocking back on his heels, arms crossed. "A disgraceful opening gambit."

Link caught at the edge of Gan's knit tunic as he moved, winding one and then the other fist in the soft wool, twisting, clawing at the ledge of one massive arm, hauling himself up the formidable bulk of the man until he could almost taste the cloves on his breath.

"Kiss me, you morbid son of a bitch."


	3. Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hero always wins - but is the hero always right?
> 
> Long histories and misunderstandings ensnare Link and Ganondorf on a sultry autumn afternoon. Neither can untangle themselves alone.

* * *

Gan raised a brow, silent, but Link felt as much as saw the twitch at one corner of his lips.  
  
Link leaned forward, slow as sunrise, to press his own lips reverently to that subtle curl. Gan drew a sharp breath. Link laid another gentle kiss along the pouting swell of lower lip, and another, and another after that, until he'd anointed the whole and his lover's skin bloomed with a renewed heat.   
  
He pulled back just far enough to resettle his weight, almost kneeling in Gan's lap, dismayed that he kept his arms crossed - but at least that offered him a ledge for his next advance. With one hand braced thus, and the other free to skim feather-light over taut wool and find purchase at the loose collar, he stretched for a conquest even more dear. Before Link's lips even touched the fine kohl-stained folds at the edge of one half-closed eye, Gan wrinkled both with a barely suppressed squeak.  
  
Link hovered there, licking his lips, counting three more heartbeats in anticipation, and pressed forward with a kiss as long as his breath.   
  
Gan whimpered.  
  
Presented with such encouragement, Link redoubled his efforts, anointing every tiny crag and valley from ear to nose and back again. He stretched to lick tiny beads of sweat from his lover's broad forehead, and twisted to burrow into soft whiskers as he sought the delicate earlobe hidden beyond.

No earrings.

No gems.

Not one adornment of any kind. His braid wasn't even bound. The tie must have slipped free in the night, as it often did, but Gan had not bothered to replace it.

He raced after his own breath as Gan unfolded his arms at last, fighting down the terror of another rejection even as he pressed his body against the furnace of his chest.

  
Death may be a jealous lover, but Link was determined to be a dangerous rival.

  
"You abject fool," murmured Gan.  
  
Link growled, fitting his left hand against the winding scar hidden under his beloved's massive jaw and pressing his forehead against the other's brow. "Dismiss my strength at your peril, Desert King."  
  
Gan snorted, tipping sideways, trembling right hand offering a hesitant support at Link's hip.

"I meant me," he said, surrendering to the pull of the earth.  
  
Nonplussed, Link shifted his weight to ride the short fall as Gan's hip and shoulder met the wide plank floors with a resounding thud. He settled back in a wide stance to consider his hot-and-cold lover, dragging his fingertips down Gan's enormous torso as he rolled onto his back.  
  
He discovered as he shifted lower that even in such a dark mood, Gan's arousal presented its substantial evidence nearly to his navel. Confusion momentarily forgotten, Link ground against him, slow and sensual, drinking in the heat and scent beneath him. Here was something with a simple answer.  
  
Gan arched his back with a muffled, rumbling moan, draping his hands over Link's whipcord thighs. He tightened his jaw and gathered breath, his rich voice strained. "Are you quite certain-"  
  
Link chuckled darkly as he broke off. Not without cause - in the same moment Link clamped his thighs tight and dug fingernails into bare flesh under the edge of that soft tunic. He slid forward, burrowing his hands under the cloth until he found the glorious, sensitive serratus ridges to either side.  
  
Eventually, he stilled the dance of his fingers to allow his lover to breathe. He did *not* still the slow undulation of his hips until Gan raised his head to glare down at his fair torturer.  
  
"As I was saying," he grumped, "I am not at all certain you actually banished the influence of the Demon King so much as stole it."  
  
Link laughed. "Objections, beloved?"  
  
"Hn," he said, dropping his head back to the floor with a formidable thunk. "Thousands."  
  
Link frowned, sitting upright and bringing his knees forward so he could stand. He managed to rise less than a thumblength, trapped under Gan's enormous, deceptively relaxed hands. Still trembling, but much less than before. The light-damage tremors were often bad in winter, but rarely did any single attack continue this long in warmer seasons without a dreadful storm stirring them up.  
  
"Don't you want me to stop?"  
  
"More to the point, what is it *you* want, hero?" he fired back.  
  
Link laid his left hand over Gan's right, willing him to hear this time, and believe. "To hold your heavy heart, and love you for as long as you and the gods permit."  
  


Silence stretched between them. Link watched the ponderous rise and fall of a dozen breaths, wondering distantly what perversity made his lover throb as his own difficulties ebbed.  
  
"I meant," he began, clearing his throat. "Are you trying to seduce me."  
  
"Is it working?"  
  
Gan made a rude noise by way of answer. He sat upright with a grunt of effort, tumbling Link backwards into his lap. He looked down with an enigmatic smirk, sliding his fingers up whipcord thighs and slender hips. He wrapped his hands most of the way around Link's trim waist with a little hum of approval.  
  
Link licked his lips, wishing his lover would conjure their clothes away and claim him like that, slow and enveloping, where he could watch the stoic indifference dissolve and wallow in the luxury of his touch.  
  
Gan unwound Link's narrow belt, working him out of tunic and shirt in distressingly prosaic fashion, even stopping to fold both neatly. Both men remained silent, helping each other remove kidskin indoor shoes and fine wool stockings. Undressing the other was a slow, familiar ritual between them, not to be interrupted lightly once begun, though not anything he’d ever really understood.

 

It was hardly an act of great revelation after so many years, and they’d come together often enough without such patient niceties. He couldn't remember when he’d picked up the habit of mirroring Gan’s deliberations. At least he was allowing that - he didn't always.

When they were both young, he’d asked his fiery lover about his curious quietude in the act, and another time about his unvoiced but nonetheless vehement preference to undress Link first, then himself.

Gan had answered both with the same expression of contempt, withdrawing his touch entirely. The third time he’d sought an explanation for each, Gan sulked for days, speaking to no one.

The ninth time, he’d ridden deep into the sand sea, and it took Link weeks to find him and drag him back to civilization.

He didn't ask again.

 

He came back from his wandering memories when he was stripped down to nothing but breeches and singlet. Gan lifted Link to his feet, caressing him from ankle to collarbone, neck to ass to calves, as if he could drink him in through fingertips and palms.  
  
Link shivered, dizzy with the rush of sensation. Time passed without him marking it - this was his favorite part of the ritual - until Gan paused his caressing to finally work the side-lacings of Link’s tight breeches.  
  
"Not yet," he said, gently removing Gan's fingers and lifting each hand to his lips to kiss every broad fingertip in turn.


	4. Twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hero always wins - but is the hero always right?
> 
> Long histories and misunderstandings ensnare Link and Ganondorf on a sultry autumn afternoon. Neither can untangle themselves alone.

Gan merely watched, golden eyes bright, pliable as anything for the moment. Link could feel his pulse hammering at the wrist as he draped both casually on his shoulders and stooped a little to haul on Gan's soft black tunic. Another compromise, bought with years of gentle persuasion.

  
With the light more favorable he noticed this tunic was the one with golden spirals worked into the cloth along every edge. More immediately relevant though, it was both stretchy and thick, designed to be worn directly against the skin.  
  
The black horn buttons sewn down the half-placket would likely be broken or lost, but Link decided it would be worth it. When Gan lifted his arms to assist, Link guided him back just enough that he wouldn't wrench his shoulder - and swiftly pulled the body of the tunic over and behind Gan's head.   
  
Gan grumbled, but didn't appear surprised. Nor did he struggle. Link moved around him, adjusting his position and the folds of cloth to bind Gan's arms to his sides from shoulder to elbow.   
  
He could still conjure it away, or set it aflame if he was feeling particularly foolish, but he didn't. Nor did it seem like he was going to, allowing Link to guide him back to the floor and tuck his own folded clothes under his head as a pillow. Usually Link preferred to negotiate openly, but he was feeling raw from the sword stunt, and more than a little vengeful.   
  
He looped his belt around Gan's ankles in a simple hobble, wondering if he was cooperating out of curiosity, apathy, or a lust for pain.  
  
The last thought brought vivid and unwelcome memories. Link curled around Gan's thighs, anchoring himself in *now*, pushing the visions away with every shred of will he could command. Years of peace, yet still terrible memories of wretched fates muscled into his consciousness without warning or mercy. Whether or not Gan could read his thoughts when he was awake, he responded to Link's distress with a quiet stretching of fingertips to brush his fine hair.  
  
That tiny, yet immensely powerful act destroyed his resolve to keep his advances moderate. He sunk teeth into Gan's hip, gnawing on the ridge of muscle descending from it, uncaring if he left stains on the interfering cloth between them. This was now, this was real. All else was figment, burdens belonging to legends that never happened, not anymore. He worked his way back up to trace the valley strung from hip to center, drawing back the tailored waist of Gan’s trousers when it was in his way.   
  
Link feasted on Gan's bare flesh, adoring the cushioned firmness of his abdomen, the delightful, bite-able pliability of his sides, the sensitive arch of his muscled chest. He soothed every wide, shallow bite with lips and tongue, again and again and again, until the movements merged into a single impassioned act.   
  
Gan's hands rested on whatever part of Link he could reach, throughout. He said nothing, but his swift breath and slow arch upward spoke for him.  
  
By the time Link licked up all sweat and spice inside his reach, he was feverish with need. He did not need to grope for his object to know it rose for his pleasure - he could smell the intoxicating sweet musk already - but he did anyway, mostly for the thrill of feeling muscles beneath him tighten when he did it.  
  
He was, however, still rational enough to breathe a prayer of thanks to whomever invented the fall-front, and to the tailor who designed them into the billowing trousers Gan preferred.  
  
Gan sighed when he pulled the tight silk undergarment out of his way without preamble - or even finishing with the laces of the deep waistband.  
  
He did not mourn the indignity long.  
  
Link kissed honey-sweet jewels from his tip, and caressed the petal-smooth crown with his tongue.

 

Gan tried and failed to repress a moan.  
  
Link adored his fever-hot treasure more gently, though no less ardently, than the rest of his beloved. When the craving struck this deeply, nothing could be more delicious. He trailed kisses along the delicate frenulum, suckled at the deep, heavy flare of the corona, nipped at the demure folds of fragile skin gathered just below, and all this while he cupped the throbbing base in an attitude of prayer.  
  
The twitching began in earnest when he sucked the ripe plum of the tip wholly into his mouth, lips closing just under the corona. The first unrestrained cry came a moment later, when he reminded Gan just how long his tongue was, snaking it down the massive shaft, curled at the edges to foreshadow future treats.  
  
Link drew mercilessly on his intimate familiarity with his lover's favorite torments. Restrained even so humbly, Gan was forced to fight his own impulses. Unable to escape or return the pleasurable attentions, he was reduced to drumming or curling his fingers on Link's hunched shoulder and channelling the remainder of his energy into a stream of hushed nonsense mumbling no doubt meant to stave off less dignified sounds.  
  
It didn't work.  
  
Link brought him within reach of a crest without adding even one more variation. He could - and often did - indulge in the minor triumph of coaxing his lover to climax with nothing more than a foundational embrace and adoration at the crown. But at the moment, he wanted to shake the mountain to rubble. So he drew back, soothing the intensity with light caresses. Gan fell quiet, his skin flooding with heat. Link pillowed his head on Gan's massive thigh, trailing idle fingertips down the shaft and through the soft curls that cushioned the root. He remained thus, schooling his own breath until he felt Gan regain control of his breath and his pulse slowed.  
  
That was when he pounced.   
  
Gan roared in shock and pleasure as Link's teeth closed around a mouthful of tender flesh at the crease of his thigh. Another heartbeat and Link wrapped his fingers around the base like stacking rings, undulating the pressure in mimicry of what his mouth would shortly do at the crown.  
  
Gan swore - he knew this trick.   
  
It didn't help.  
  
Link subsided only when he had brought his lover within sight of another climax he wouldn't permit.  
  
Both men recovered their breath without being able to trade tension for peace. When Link began the third act with an immediate, sliding embrace of the whole upper third, Gan allowed himself a groan of satisfaction. He even tilted his hips to offer himself at a more comfortable angle. Link often worked in threes - they both did.  
  
Gan trembled when his theory was dashed to bits. "Six is very far away," he mumbled, his golden eyes fixed sightlessly on the shadowed ceiling far above.  
  
Six was a modest number.  
  
And so and so, by infinitesimal degrees, Link guided his beloved to such a state of mingled bliss and torment that an unguarded breath could provoke a whimper. By that time, Link had finally finished unwinding the layered fastenings of the trousers and eased them down while Gan writhed in one of many waves of desperate, interrupted pleasure.   
  
Link rested against Gan's trembling stomach, preparing for his finishing triumph. He trailed fingertips through the sprawl of soft, short curls, around the quivering base, down over the swell of his firm, high sack, and into the tender valleys below.  
  
He'd expected a response, especially now, but he did not anticipate its nature. Or that Gan's dark rose would be almost completely unfurled of itself and throbbing.  
  
Link shared his observation, hoping for a laugh or a saucy comment.  
  
What he got was an invitation, in the form of a resonant moan and drawing up of his knees, splayed akimbo to make room for Link in spite of the hobble.  
  
A victory, but one that provoked a return of his anger. Here was undeniable evidence of desire, not merely now, but for some time prior. Decades in close company lent a certain familiarity with Gan's moods, and he *never* allowed himself this degree of shameless, helpless petition to be filled unless he'd already spent hours obsessing over the same.  
  
Which meant some part of his mind had been imagining being taken not merely during this performance, but when Link first entered the room.   
  
Yearning to be penetrated even as he pulled the sword stunt, courting a terrible death.

  
Link vented some of his fury in a primal growl, rocking forward to tear his laces loose with his free hand. He would make Gan understand if it was the last thing he ever did.  
  


-

  
Gan sucked his breath through his teeth in anticipation, tension screaming from every muscle. A fresh sheen of sweat bloomed over the expanse of his chest when Link crawled over his near thigh into the space opened for him.   
  
Gan could no longer reach him at all. He sunk his fingers into his own thighs to keep them occupied, and he sucked another hissing breath as Link braced himself with clawed hands in the tender flesh at the join of thigh.   
  
Infuriating man.  
  
Instead of pressing his own hips forward, he bowed one last time over Gan's nodding horn, drooling in spite of himself as he waited through a brief cycle of its dance. Patience and well-chosen ground brought the treat to his lips, and he descended on it with a startling speed.  
  
Gan's moan turned into a low cry when he passed the first third, rising in force and pitch when he had half. At the second third his chest heaved skyward and he trembled like a restive horse.  
  
Link's anger dimmed for a moment in the thrill of triumph, temporarily eclipsed by the sensation and effect of his mastery. The pleasure of holding that epic, fiery, pliable pressure against tongue and palate and throat had been a surprising discovery once. Time and familiarity had only improved its charm - a practice made possible by Gan's exquisite gallantry and self-control.  
  
Of course, part of its draw lay in its unmatched capacity to shatter said control in all other matters. Never, in all the years they'd carved out together, had Gan ever allowed this wildness to harm his lover or force him past his chosen ground. Nor did he do so now, as Link slid inexorably closer to the root.  
  
He did writhe and shiver in glorious agony, and he *sang*. The floor trembled in resonance, and no doubt servants half a building away could hear their King petition the gods. Any opinion they had of such episodes were carefully kept from Link's long ears, but he privately hoped it might stir amusement or even mischief.   
  
He certainly felt his own desire tighten to the point of pain when he closed over the final glory. He held his ground, nose buried in soft curls, breath no longer possible.  
  
Link tormented his captive with infinitesimal shifts of pressure and shape as he dug the shallow tin of salve from his pocket, prying it open quickly, one-handed. Gan's song faltered, broken by desperate gulps of air as a faint swelling crescendo built under Link's tongue. He swore silently - a heartbeat too long, perhaps - and pulled back as loose and slow as possible.  
  
Gan whimpered, slamming his head back against the floor. Link glanced to confirm as he eased back, smearing salve hastily over his own tip - yes, Gan was going to bear arcs of ten more tiny bruises on his thighs tomorrow. Another time, his lover's dedication to the game to the point of assistance with delaying climax might have amused him.  
  
Now, it stoked his fury that Gan so clearly preferred to cause himself lingering pain than admit desire or ask for release.  
  
He cursed himself for a fool, despairing of so many years wasted on a dream. Zelda had been right from the first. All that mattered to him was pride and possession and power. Everything else was merely a tool to further those ends, or the product of his own naive wish.  
  
Link almost choked in the last few moments of withdrawal as his throat tightened and his eyes stung. Gan didn't seem to notice any difference - but then, he had no reason to.   
  
He dug clawed hands into the beautiful, cursed bulk of those hips, pushing himself up and forward until he could tuck himself into the dark valley beneath him. Luck or long practice or some measure of both carried him at once directly to the pulsing gate. By sheer force of will he permitted it to draw him forward only to the fullness above his corona and not a hair further.   
  
The exquisite intensity of fitting curve to curve became torment. Even being able to gaze across his lover's chest to see his golden eyes half-lidded and his chin tucked tight against his shoulder did nothing to ease it. He wanted to scream, he wanted to fight, he wanted anything at all that could relieve the terrible weight of meaninglessness.  
  
"You ready?" He said, his voice raw. But what he meant was: _en garde_.  
  
Gan opened one eye, sucking his swollen lower lip into his teeth with a sharp nod. He didn't understand. He probably couldn't even see properly.  
  
"Better fetch the blade then, mm?" Link said, resisting the urge to punctuate the barb with material thrust or strike.  
  
Gan's brows drew together after three heartbeats' delay, and fixing that golden eye on the other man as he slurred his way through a _prise de fer_. "Th'ell you on 'bout?"  
  
Link bared his teeth in a snarl. _Flèche_. "Who am I to deny the Great King what he really wants, hm? Shall I fetch it myself or do you want to show off your conjuring one last time?"  
  
Gan pulled his head up, eyes flashing, and caught Link's left wrist in spite of his temporarily limited range. _Parry. Riposte_. "What in the name of the Three is wrong with you?"  
  
 _Redoublement_. Link pressed forward to the edge of the corona, burying his tip in the still-throbbing, open vestibule.  
  
Gan sucked a desperate breath, golden eyes wide with surprise. _Touché_. "Crazy Hylian!"  
  
Link flexed his clawed hands, wishing he had the strength to make it hurt. _Attaque au fer_. "Go ahead. Summon it."  
  
Gan tightened his grip on Link's wrist, pulling his hips back and down. _Parry_. "What's gotten into you?"  
  
Link clenched his jaw with the effort of flexing muscle and tendon to make his horn leap in place. Gan's eyes crossed for a moment. _Disengage_.  
  
"Why in nine hells you bring that up _**now**_ ?" Gan roared, rattling floorboards and loose metal somewhere upon it. _Glissé_.   
  
Link shouted back, leaning in enough to let the rose claim another fraction of his length. He was painfully aware of how much smaller his voice sounded even as he fed it on his despair. _Coup d'arrêt_. "Perfect, isn't it? Fuckin' _**poetry**_. How's _**that**_ feel, huh?"  
  
Gan cried out, eyes wild and confused. _Parry, retreat_. "Torture, you idiot!"  
  
"Good!" Link bellowed. _Advance-lunge_. "Drink it in, you heartless bastard."  
  
"The fuck?" Gan recoiled, his hands springing open as he pressed his back tight to the floor.  
  
" _ **Win**_ ," Link said, pouring all of his venom into that single word. _Tropement_.  
  
Gan blinked thrice, then dropped his head back with a groan.   
  
Perversely, the intensity of Link's focus on that startled reaction opened him to the true counterattack: Gan relaxed his rose completely even as his swollen, sodden manhood stirred. A heartbeat of inattention, and the subsequent flexion caught him unprepared.  
  
Link burned for the shameful squeak which escaped him as fully half his length was drawn into the depths of the furnace. Gan didn't seem to notice, mumbling nonsense and balling his hands into fists.   
  
A heartbeat later as Gan lurched upward to catch his wrists he revised that. Gan knew exactly what he was doing.   
  
"How dare you?" Link demanded, gasping as Gan arched back, hips tilted to pull him closer. "How dare you ask that of me? How dare you get a rise out of demanding I _**destroy you**_?"  
  
Gan moaned something that sounded suspiciously like an apology, thrusting upward to envelop him completely.   
  
Link fought for clarity, blood pounding in his ears from the pulsing intensity of Gan's rose. He wanted more, and he wanted nothing to do with it, both in the same moment. So many times they'd come together in joy and pleasure, humor or challenge, and this flood of sensation evoked them all.   
  
And still the sense of disillusionment and betrayal and loss was a stone around his neck.   
  
He open his mouth to swear, but his traitorous tongue poured out pain instead. "I won't let you _**use**_  me."  
  
Gan pulled at him, trying to draw him down, drawing his knees up to pin Link's thighs between his own. "C'mere-" he said, over and over, voice grown rough.  
  
Link strained against the dizzying pulse and bittersweet embrace, locking every joint and howling: "You can't. You belong to me!"  
  
"Din's fire-" Gan swore, clawing his hands up Link's arms as far as he could reach, grip sliding for the sweat that draped them both.  
  
"Mine, do you hear?" Link thrust viciously as he said it, distantly thinking this might weaken Gan's grip.  
  
"Enough-" Gan cried, digging his thumbs into rigid tendons until Link's arms betrayed him, and he collapsed, trapped in a fiery cage of flesh.  
  
"Say it. My rules! Say it you bastard! I won, you hear? You. Are. Mine. Say it! _**Mine**_." Link shouted between gasps for air, caught almost painfully tight to Gan's heaving chest. Unable to break away, he meted out the only punishment he could: he clawed, and he thrust. Every time he felt a throb from the swollen, sodden enormity of Gan's perverse arousal where it pressed against his own abdomen, he thrust his own flagging staff forward, drawing back only enough to be able to thrust at all.   
  
Over and over, demand, thrust, demand, thrust.  
  
Gan roared, the reverberation filling them both and blurring the sense of the words pouring from his tongue. Shards tumbled past Link's ears, none of them enough.  
  
"Fine," Gan said.  
  
"Dammit," Gan said.  
  
"I am," Gan said.  
  
"Stop it," Gan said.  
  
"You have," Gan said.  
  
"Idiot," Gan said.  
  
"Have been," Gan said.  
  
"Listen to me-!" Gan said, crushing Link even tighter in the moment of another forward thrust, another vain, impotent  _ **mine**_. "I can't bear the - gods! Stop already! - can't bear the thought of - dammit! - I'm sorry, ok?"  
  
Link buried his face against his lover's burning flesh, cursing, shaking, hammering desperately. He was lying. It was all a lie. It always had been. So many timeshifts, so many failures, and so many years, all for nothing.

  
He lost hardness with every beat, even as Gan clamped tight around him and boiled over, cementing them together. He was falling - he couldn't breathe - he burned from crown to toes - he wouldn't surrender - he wouldn't cry - he would not fall - he would not fail - not again - never again - he would - not -


	5. Nightfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hero always wins - but is the hero always right?
> 
> Long histories and misunderstandings ensnare Link and Ganondorf on a sultry autumn afternoon. Neither can untangle themselves alone.

Link returned to himself in darkness and heat, folded awkwardly on his back across a lumpy, damp, but warm ground. His ears buzzed uncomfortably. The air hung thick with the scent of sex and striving. When he tried to move he found he was completely immobilized in a tangle of limbs. He struggled to parse that, gradually realizing soft lips pressed against his forehead and brow, again and again, part of some mantra he could barely hear, let alone understand.

“Hot,” he said, his voice sounding hollow and distant and strange to his ears.

“Too bad,” rumbled his captor, nuzzling his hair, tracing one broad thumb along the line of his jaw. The swell of breath rising beside and flowing over him wrapped Link in waves of somnolent warmth. He turned his face away from the faint ticklishness to his right, and found the hollow of another enormous, faintly trembling hand curled around him.

 

Oh. Ganondorf.

 

He groaned from the depths of his exhaustion as memory and meaning rushed to flood his hollow soul. The blessed moment of ignorance crumbled under the onslaught of despair and he shook with reaction.

“It's alright. I'm here.”

“No,” he said, pushing against Gan with all his strength to no effect whatsoever. “Never were - lemme up! I won't let you. Just - lemme go you mons-”

“Shhh. Listen, ok?” Gan murmured into his hair, the gentleness of his words belied by the strength with which he held and silenced his captive. “I'm not going to explain until you're listening, and I won't let you go until you’ve heard me out. Sporting chance, you know?”

Link glared at the unvaried darkness, wondering vaguely how the afternoon had passed so swiftly. The pressure of Gan's thumb holding his jaw shut was light, but impossible to move, so he didn't bother to attempt further speech.

 

Twenty heartbeats passed.

 

Forty.

 

Two hundred.

 

Against his will, he felt the steady and painfully familiar rhythm of Gan's body coiled around his trying to draw him into its harmony. It would be so easy to give in to the dream again. Pretend there was more than duty to the alliance or tactical advantage in the event of its failure. Gan’s heart was truly good. What they had was real, and mattered.

So easy.

He lost count of beats, fighting both temptation and despair. He would not yield to either before his timeless enemy.

 

A whisper from ages ago, long forgotten, one beloved voice addressing another.

“ _It does not follow that what isn't love must be evil. Alliance is a matter of reason. The logistical particulars are in every point negotiable, and hang tradition._ ”

He’d been so proud of both, so happy and full of light that day, daring to hope that this time, everything really would be different.

Memory supplied a thousand ways leaving Gan to his own devices could bring disaster - but the heartbreak was his own invention alone. He should never have allowed himself to become attached, to believe Gan could return his feelings.

Just because it wasn't love, didn't make him evil. He couldn't allow his pain to cloud that.

Not an enemy anymore.

Not for a long time.

 

Now he just had to unlearn the habit of loving him, aching for the day he would finally return - perhaps even admit - an affection at all deeper than casual camaraderie and lust.

 

Link almost broke when Gan kissed him full on the lips, tender and reverent. The pressure under his jaw was gone - when had that happened? He remained trapped where he lay, but his treacherous heart reminded him of what comfort it once brought. So many nights, blissfully ignorant of Gan’s complete indifference. How precious the sacrament, and how desperately he craved it.

Link already knew too well the distance which one morning could measure between bliss and disaster. Only last night he’d fallen asleep burrowed into the heart of strength, enveloped in his beloved, guarded from the world of mortals and ghosts alike.

He mourned the loss of that dream even as those lips blessed his again - wide and soft and passionate - tongue rich with clove and honey. His heart pressed against his ribs until he thought it might leap clear through. He hungered for it, and he hated it.

 

He discovered to his distress that he couldn't stop returning those kisses with desperate fervor before he’d quite realized he’d begun.

 

When Gan drew away with a tickle of long hair across his face, he couldn't hold back tears any longer. Gan had unbound his braid, even though it would take hours to untangle.

“Would you hear me now, hero?” Gan murmured from the darkness. “If you accept nothing else, you must understand this. I cannot bear the thought of your weapon or will failing you. When the day comes that you need it, both must answer more swiftly and deadly than lightning.”

Link felt ashamed of the cracks showing in his voice. “How can you say these horrid things  - all but promising to embrace evil? After everything we fought for-”

“Link, you continue to bear that sword because there remains a threat to this world which only you can meet. There is no other end possible. Every moment you waste exchanging blows is a moment you may be defeated - and that I cannot allow. You  _**must** _ be able to kill in the first strike.”

 

“What if it's you?” Link whispered, twining a stray lock of hair between his fingers - careful not to pull, and alert its bearer to his weakness. “No one else is stupid enough to challenge a demigod-”

 “Can't you understand? That only makes it _more important_. I face every sunrise knowing that I am no fair judge of the balance of my soul. Your faith in my capacity for selfless virtue is misplaced. Even now,” he said, tracing the slender curve of Link’s unblemished neck. “I endanger your judgment, your resolve, and therefore your life - knowing whatever is left of my heart will die with you - and _**I can't stop myself**_.”

 “You don’t have to choose evil-”

 Gan interrupted him with another kiss, catching Link’s lower lip between his own for the space of a dozen heartbeats. When he spoke, he murmured his words onto Link’s lips as if he was passing some dread secret, both of them twice hidden by the shadows and the voluminous tumble of Gan’s hair.

 “I choose evil every time I touch you, my love.”

 

Link’s heart stumbled.

Love.

He actually said _**love**_.

He wasn't teasing or ironic, mirroring Link’s Hylian sentiment in mockery.

_**My love** _ .

 

Link shivered, speechless.

 

Gan unwound his limbs at last, ponderous and careful, breaking contact rather than slide flesh over flesh for a moment longer than necessary. It did not spare Link’s feelings in the least, for the trailing whisper of Gan’s hair as he retreated only confirmed how completely his beloved had embraced him when his own strength failed.

“Don’t,” he said.

 

Silence, but he stopped moving.

 

“I can't pull you back from the darkness when you push me away. When I’ve failed before, you hadn't been _**you**_ for some time. But even at your worst - you may have been blind or indifferent, but you’ve never enjoyed the suffering and hatred that followed your choices. Don’t start now.”

“If you cannot recognize your danger it may already be too late,” said Gan, a thunder felt more than heard. “I am, as you say, a heartless bastard.”

“That serves the opposite of persuasion,” said Link, twisting onto his side to press his back against Gan’s beautiful, powerful, sweat-slick body, fitting hill to valley in perfect harmony. He could feel the faint catch in the rhythm of the expansive heart enfolding his, wondering how he could have misunderstood its song before.

“Link-” said Gan, as Link stretched to pull his lover’s thigh over him as another might burrow under a favorite blanket.

“You’ll have to trust me,” he said, guiding Gan’s arm to encircle him again. His hands were trembling, but for the first time Link questioned how much the tremors truly owed to old wounds.

“You could be corrupted,” Gan murmured into his short hair.

“Then it will be your turn to save me,” said Link, turning his head to press one ear against his lover’s chest and fill his senses with that precious beat.

 

“How does one even begin to save a hero?”

 

“Legend tells us there is a deep magic in true love’s kiss,” said Link, grinning at the shadows as he rolled his hips back. “But for my part, I think the legends are a bit… coy.”

“Hn,” said Gan, but the way he curled his own hips belied his sarcasm. “Now I am certain you’re trying to seduce me.”

“Is it working?”

Gan clicked his tongue in mock censure as his flesh answered eloquently in his name, stirring against the delicate and vulnerable curve of ass and thigh. “Ganondorf Dragmire, once a Great King of Evil, taking orders from a runt.”

“Admit it,” purred Link, feeling his own arousal deepen in anticipation of the pleasures filling his mind. “You like it when I win.”

“A bold claim,” said Gan, flexing and pressing himself tightly to his lover. The heat of his increase teased the underside of Link’s own, trailing silken promise along his inner thigh and taut perenium. “I rather think I hold the higher ground, hero.”

Link shivered as his root tightened in swift reply, sending a cascade of sensation through his limbs. He dreaded the necessity of interruption at such a delicious moment, but the remainder of his clothes and Gan’s had vanished while he was not entirely conscious. Probably by magic, to gods only know where Gan sent such things until he wanted them again. The trouble came in that wherever they went, so too went the helpful little cinches and provoking mint and cinnamon tinctures - and worst of all? - the tins of heavy beeswax-and-palm oil salve.

 

“Um,” he said, brilliantly.

 

“Nervous?”

Link bit his tongue as Gan drew back, dragging his throbbing erection along Link’s delicate skin until the upper ridge teased his own flared rose. He felt impossibly huge - his length at full potential exceeded the breadth of his already massive hands, but  _that_ was not the most compelling detail.

Gan teased him with a series of slow, sliding thrusts along the surface from unfolding rose to the far curve of orchid root and along the languid throbbing of his own renewed desire. It was nearly impossible to entertain any thought beyond the intensity of his heat and regal girth. Link whimpered in spite of himself at the thoroughness of Gan’s performance.

“Afraid I will break you, little hero?” Gan’s seductive murmur sent shivers down his spine.

 

He’d done this the first time he took Link, down to the way he shaped the mingled threat and promise in his words. Where he settled his hands, and the rhythm he set in his suggestive undulations.

Not only in this time, but in the first doomed attempts to forge the story they traveled now. Once Link learned how to shape the timeshifts to his own will, and to control how much his body reflected or refused them, he'd sworn before the gods that he would go back until he set  _**everything** _ right.

He’d lost count of how many times he replayed the tragedy before he realized he’d never understood the story at all. This secret he kept closer than any other, and often from himself: when exactly his passion for his former enemy first kindled.

 

What he could never forget was the first time he lay under the young king, terrified of his own desire and bracing himself to endure intimate pain as great as any battlefield wound.

Pain that never existed outside his own imagination, yet never left it.

 

Gan had repeated the same exact performance in every shift where Link drew close enough for there to be a first surrender. But - only the first time in each. An amusing thread of circumstance and continuity for the only audience who ever saw it.

What was he about with this reprise, perfectly synchronous with memory after many long decades of letting time unspool of itself?

What would happen if he broke the script? If he held back the flippant remark and surrendered to whatever use the King would make of him without driving him towards any end? This time they  _**both** _ remembered, and neither could pretend the act was novel.

 

“Yes,” he said, quietly. “Every time.”

  
“How _**dare**_ you,” Gan whispered back too swiftly, breath hot against his ear, jeweled tip pressing faintly against his rose. “How dare you get a rise out of inviting me to _**destroy you**_?”


	6. Moonrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hero always wins - but is the hero always right?
> 
> Long histories and misunderstandings ensnare Link and Ganondorf on a sultry autumn afternoon. Neither can untangle themselves alone.

Link swallowed his first bitter retort at the heart-wrenching barb. He counted breaths as he struggled to frame a true answer. How long had he known?

“It's not about that.”

“No?” Gan increased the pressure until the outer gate stretched to cradle the broad curve of his fiery tip.

 

“The first time we spoke was the first time you hurt me." Link spoke quickly, pouring out the confession before he could think better of it. "I was threatening to maim your horse - and kill you, if I could. You knocked me out of the road with a lightning ball smaller than we use to spar with, and left.” 

A moment of perfect stillness.

“I’ve seen that meeting in your dreams. It has… other endings. What does that-”

 

“I know you,” Link confessed, caressing Gan’s hands, forcing himself to relax. “The thrill is - you can, but won’t, unless you have no other choice. That you have the power to cause pain but prefer pleasure.”

 

“Hnnn,” said Gan after a silence too long for comfort. He rocked back until he barely brushed the sensitive skin of the valley as he throbbed. The friction was so slight, it was more ticklish than anything - and then he shifted his grip. The arm under him tightened around his chest and the other hand slid down - down - _down_ \- _**down**_.  “Are you certain you've tamed the beast-?”

Gan coaxed a moan from his lips as he cupped his hand around tender flesh, spreading his fingers in an artfully measured slide. One long stroke, palm curved to arch around his length and tightening root, then another, sensation enveloping him from tip to root to the depths of his rose.

He didn't even mark the moment Gan entered the first gate, lost in the bliss of his touch. He raced after his breath when Gan encircled his shaft completely, barely moving at all. The anticipation, the electric shiver when he did tighten or slide, the blessed heat of it all.

The sound that came from his own throat as Gan slid into the embrace of the second gate startled and embarrassed him, and he tried desperately to object or chide his lover in spite of the pulsing fog of pleasure scrambling his sense.

Except… Nothing hurt. Far from it. It should have, without salve - the girth alone and never mind the friction-

 

“That,” Gan chuckled darkly, kissing the top of his head, “was all _**your**_ doing. Fortunate I can conjure all manner of things wherever I please, isn't it?”

“Oh,” said Link.

“Oh,” agreed Gan, infuriatingly smug.

 

Link made a face at the darkness and set his will. He let the waves of sensation flow through him as Gan used his own inconvenient familiarity with his lover to increase his torment. Although they both trained in swordplay, Gan kept his sensitive hands incredibly soft, so the raised edges of the fresh cuts stood in sharp contrast to the rest of his touch.

When indeed Link could notice anything at all beyond the blur of ecstasy raised by those intimate caresses threatening to upend his plans. He would serve the bastard his own dish.

In a manner of speaking.

 

“Oh!” Gan cried, when Link judged he’d forgotten to brace himself for a retort.

“Oh-!” cried Link in the same breath, having forgotten Gan had yet to clear the second gate.

 

The deep flare of the corona caught well behind the startled tightening, and both men moaned in their shared agony. Link reached desperately for ledges of beloved flesh to grasp, sinking slowly lower.

Gan coiled around him, rich voice swelling with ecstasy. Link drew him onward, dizzy with the bliss of it all. What began in petty revenge slid inexorably closer to mutual oblivion. Subtle ripples of motion not much larger than a shallow breath rocked them clear from their moorings, and stole the vigor from their limbs.

The moon rose through the stillroom windows across the hall, pouring silver benedictions over a trembling knot of flesh, light and dark, lost to its beauty for the flood of their joy.

 

-

  
  
"Going to start obeying gods again are you?"  
  
Link blinked in confusion, languishing in the sodden nest they’d made of each other and their discarded clothes. How could he be so vulgar as to use _**words**_ at a time like this? What was he on about?

Gan prodded his thin chest. Damn. He expected an answer. Link puzzled through his challenge, prodding at ticklish places to buy him time to think.

A dozen labored breaths, tense with anticipation of the next assault reminded him of the afternoon and the pain of yet another confession dismissed, ignored.

 

_To hold your heavy heart as long as you and the gods permit._

 

Except Gan hadn't been ignoring him at all. Not then, maybe not ever.

 

"Only the agreeable ones," he said at last. 

Gan snorted, cupping a broad hand to caress his fine hair and settle against the curve of his skull. "And me?"

"Only when **_you_** are agreeable."

  
"Din's fire," he swore, exhaling dramatically and dragging Link up his body to tuck him under his chin, captured securely in the knot of his arms. " _ **Why**_ do you have to be so blasted charming?"

 

-

  
**Fin**


End file.
